of the demons, and how Râma, by the aid of an army of monkeys, bridges the straits between India and Ceylon, and slaying the demon, recovers his lovely and innocent wife. The resemblance between the plot and that of the Iliad has inclined some scholars to derive the Indian from the Greek epic. But, until the relative antiquity of the poems is established, the Iliad might as well be derived from the Râmâyana. The theory is unsubstantiated. These epics of India lack the artistic spirit and grace of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but they display a keener sympathy with nature and a more romantic appreciation of the loves and sorrows of mankind.

Persian Records. The Avesta, or Sacred Book of the ancient Persians, composed in the Zend language and later translated into mediæval Persian, — or Pahlavi, contains the Gáthás, or hymns of Zoroaster and his contemporaries, and scriptures of as recent a date as the fifth century B.C. Zoroaster, a holy man of God, was the founder or the reformer of the Persian religion. He lived as early as the fourteenth or fifteenth century B.C., and his system became the dominant religion of Western Asia from the time of Cyrus (550 B.C.) to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. The teachings of Zoroaster are characterized by beautiful simplicity, and by an unwavering faith in the ultimate victory of righteousness (Ormuzd) over evil (Ahriman).

The stories of Greek, Roman, Norse, and German mythology that have most influenced our English literature will follow in the order named. The Romans, being by nature a practical, not a poetic, people, incorporated in their literature the mythology of the Greeks. We shall, however, append to our description of the Greek gods a brief account of the native Latin divinities that retained an individuality in Roman literature.